Contact: Ellen Bank
843.792.2626
Sept. 21, 2001
Charleston, SC -- Today, the first patient in South Carolina received treatment for a brain tumor using the new GliaSite Radiation Therapy System (RTS). The MUSC Medical Center is one of only 11 hospitals in the country to be licensed to use the GliaSite RTS.
The GliaSite RTS delivers site-specific, internal radiation, treating the target area while minimizing exposure to healthy tissue. The device is a balloon catheter that is inserted into the cavity created by surgical removal of the malignant brain tumor and filled with Iotrex, a proprietary liquid radiation source. Over a course of three to seven days, GliaSite delivers radiation directly to the tissue surrounding the cavity, where the tumors are most likely to recur.
The patient is Jean W. McKenzie, a 51-year-old woman from Effingham, SC. McKenzie had standard surgery in Florence to remove her glioblastoma, a serious brain tumor. This was followed by radiation treatment. When her tumor came back, she was referred to MUSC neurosurgeon, Sunil Patel, M.D. On August 17, Patel removed the tumor that recurred, and implanted the balloon catheter inside the cavity left by the tumor. Today intense radiation was injected into the cavity by Joseph M. Jenrette III, an MUSC radiation oncologist. It is anticipated that the radiation will prevent recurrence without damaging healthy brain tissue. The American Cancer Society estimates that 16,500 U.S. patients will be diagnosed this year with malignant primary brain tumors and nearly all will experience tumor regrowth after
initial treatment. In addition, research suggests approximately 170,000 patients will be diagnosed with metastatic tumors that originate elsewhere in the body and migrate to the brain. Traditionally, patients are first treated with external beam radiation therapy, in which the radiation travels from outside the body to the tumor site, passing through healthy brain tissue. While this treatment is proven to suppress tumor regrowth, a second course of external beam radiation is rarely an option due to the high risk of damage to healthy tissue.
Until now, treatment for patients with recurrent tumors has been extremely limited. The GliaSite RTS will enable these patients to receive additional radiation, while minimizing the risks associated with external beam delivery. Additionally, GliaSite can be used in combination with external beam radiation when treating newly diagnosed tumors, and there is substantial interest in using the device in combination with surgical removal of metastatic brain tumors.
"GliaSite represents an important new treatment option for malignant brain tumors," said Patel. "Radiation combined with surgery is the single most effective treatment, and GliaSite is a newer and safer method to deliver additional radiation. The information we currently have suggests that the survival rate of the GliaSite study participants is significantly longer than the next best secondary treatment, which is chemotherapy."
Safety and performance of the device were demonstrated in a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-sponsored, multi-center study, which involved patients with recurrent brain tumors. All of the patients had undergone previous surgery and radiation therapy, and just more than half of the patients had received chemotherapy. The median survival rate of the patients is currently 13 months, with patients still being followed, a substantial improvement over the results historically seen with other treatments.
MUSC will soon be participating a trial using this technique for newly diagnosed patients with malignant brain tumors.
"It's a significant advancement to be able to offer our patients an improved therapy that delivers radiation directly to the site of the cancer, while maintaining the quality of life for patients by completing the treatment in just one week," said Jenrette.
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